Questions regarding cleaning up a cast Le Page hook breech and tang.

[Rolf]

I've starte cleaning up the Le page hooked breeches and tangs I got from Blackley.  Filing the tang flat was easy. Filing the rear of the breech to flate mate  with the tang was harder. On these breeches the sheld for the snail is in one piece and attach to the breech only. This gives a curved area on the breech that has to match a curved area on the tang.

The barrel profile is octangonal and I got the three upper flats to mate flush. There is a gap of about 1/64" that starts on the bottom flat and closes on the middel of the side flats

1.Is there any tricks to getting these parts to mate flush?
2.Should I epoxy the tang to the breech now and file them flush, or should I wait til I've fitted the breech to the barrels?

Best regards
Rolf

[Captchee]

 blacken the tang and set it to your breech . then slowly start removing the  high spost just as you would on inleting any part to wood .
 once you saticfied with the fit then  you set the plug to the barrel .
 after you have the plug set then join the tang to the breech  with eather epoxy , bedding compount  or engraving  wax /Pitch .
 then file all the flats .

myself , i set the plug first . once thats done then i fit the tang . then file

[Bill of the 45th]

I would epoxy, or soft solder together to make it a single piece.  Then you could file to desired shape, then separate.  I also think fitting the breach first so that you won't over file your flats.

Bill

[Jim Kibler]

I think the first thing I would do is get the plug threaded and fit to the barrel, then work back from there.  Ideally the plug section will be properly oriented relative to the rest of the plug, but it may not happen perfectly.  If this is the case, you may have to re-do the work behind the plug and you might not have more limited stock since material was already removed.